DENVER — Denver Mayor Mike Johnston defended the city's immigration policies at a congressional hearing on Wednesday. In many ways, the hearing was more like a political sideshow with a lot of half-truths and exaggerations.
The first question, which was asked by Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, set the tone for the entire hearing.
“Mayor Johnston, is Denver a sanctuary city?” Comer asked.
“A lot of folks use that term,” Johnston said. “Folks use that term differently. I can tell you what Denver does. We do not—”
Comer cut Johnston off before he could finish his thought.
“Okay, I take that as a ‘yes,’” Comer said.
Many conservatives like Comer use "sanctuary city" to refer to cities that limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but there's technically no legal definition.
Denver has never officially called itself a sanctuary city. It was given that title under President Donald Trump's first administration.
In 2017, the first Trump administration asked for "sanctuary cities," including Denver, to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its crackdown on immigration. In response, then-Mayor Michael Hancock signed an executive order that created a legal defense fund for people threatened with or in removal proceedings and ordered the Denver Sheriff Department, which operates the city's jail, not to seek federal funding that required the department to gather and release information about a person’s immigration or citizenship status.
In that order, Hancock called Denver a "safe and welcoming city" but never used the word "sanctuary."
- Watch our coverage of the congressional hearing in this story or in the video player below
Committee members weren’t the only ones making questionable statements. During a back-and-forth with Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, Johnston said Denver honors ICE detainer requests.
“We've honored detainer requests more than 1,226 times over the last few years,” Johnston said.
The mayor's statement is misleading. While Denver notifies ICE agents when someone they're looking for will be released from jail, it doesn't honor the other part of detainer requests, which asks local law enforcement to detain people so that agents can pick them up.
Johnston explained this to Denver7 in January.
“But we don't honor detainers. We won't hold someone for ICE,” Johnston said at the time. “That's not our job. Our officers have enough to do in the city. They don't need to be doing federal law enforcement's job on immigration."
It’s not something that appeared out of the blue. A 2019 Colorado law prohibits local law enforcement from detaining people for ICE. A 2017 Denver ordinance also won’t let ICE agents enter city jails to make arrests or to interrogate people suspected of being in the country illegally without a warrant.
Under federal law, ICE doesn’t need a warrant to make an arrest.
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Throughout the hearing, Republicans tried to paint Denver as a hotbed of crime because of illegal immigration.
"I've seen firsthand how public safety in Colorado and in Denver is plummeting,” said Colorado Congressman Gabe Evans.
He cited a report from U.S. News and World Report, which ranked Denver as the tenth most dangerous city in the country. But further inspection finds the report is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data that’s nearly three years old.
More recent data from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) shows that violent crime has fallen in Denver.
The report Evans cited also mentions that crime had fallen in Denver more recently. Crime in Denver is still significantly higher than it was 10 years ago, but data shows it started rising well before waves of immigrants started arriving in 2022.
Numerous studies have also shown there is no link between waves of immigration and higher rates of crime, despite politicians claiming otherwise.
It remains to be seen what impact the hearing or investigation into ‘sanctuary cities’ will have on actual policies, but it’s already had an impact on politics.
The House Oversight Committee is known to be one of the most politically-charged committees in Congress, regardless of which party controls it. Indeed, throughout the five-hour hearing, many committee members seemed to be more interested in baiting the mayors to say something politically damaging rather than asking probing questions to gain insight into their city's policies.
University of Denver political science professor Phil Chen said the hearing was always going to be political.
"The Congress doesn't have a ton of power over these mayors," said Chen. "It's largely a political spectacle. That was what it was intended to be.”
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